DAoC: State of the Game
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1099
There is more to Mythic and DAoC than simply a subscriber count and what I'm about to say will surprise a lot of people and be followed, I'm sure, with a bit of skepticism by some people after reading this message. We are, as always, grateful for the community's support during the last two years. You've supported us through our good decisions and bad decisions, you've supported us while other big-profile games have been released, and you've supported us by continuing to be our customers. Now is our time to give something back to you in a most unexpected way.
It would be easy for us to keep doing what we've done over the last two years. After all, why argue with a successful model that has worked for us and other companies? We could keep two full teams working on separate parts of DAoC and release expansion packs for both retail (ToA) and for subscription-based (Foundations). However, Mythic has never been about taking the easy path. We've never been shy about admitting our mistakes, nor reticent about accepting well-earned kudos. So, we have made a decision which that will shake up that model and take us down a different path.
As of the New Year, Mythic will devote both its entire DAoC teams to subscription based content (just like Foundations) for at least the next quarter or more. We will be reintegrating the teams with one mission, to take DAoC to the next level and in a way that all of our customers can support. The DAoC Team will be focusing on new content (the RvR expansion which you will be hearing a lot more about starting this week), new features and updating and redoing the existing areas of DAoC. Additionally, we will continue to work on any issues that are currently associated with ToA encounters and of course, any new issues that might arise based on that expansion pack. For those skeptics who will simply say that (Mythic is cutting out the expansion team and putting them on Imperator,) that is not the case. Mythic currently has two full teams working on DAoC and all of those people will be still working on DAoC next year; they will just be working on DAoC LIVE content. I made a promise last year about DAoC's future and not only are we keeping the promise, we are expanding on it. Never before in the short history of MMORPGs has any company followed this path (at least not with a team this size). We are proud to make this commitment to our players and only once we are totally satisfied with the state of the game, will some of us go back to work on a new expansion pack. Looking forward, selling a couple of hundred thousand boxes (per expansion pack) is great but that shouldn't be our guiding star. The star should be our commitment to making DAoC the best MMORPG on the market, and we are showing our commitment to our game and to our players by this action.
